Here we are, the conclusion of my Drummer’s I Love blog series! I would like to reiterate that these twelve drummers were not my only influences; they are just a few drummers that I have come by in more recent years that have had a major impact on my personal playing and musical goals. This being said, the final drummer I will be covering is the pinnacle of speed and endurance. I have already covered a few drummers (such as Dan Presland) that are insanely well-practiced in the stamina department, but not many drummers match up to this one in regards to both speed and stamina. This drummer is none other than…
Kevin Paradis – Drummer of Benighted, Independent
Taken from https://www.grimmgent.com/watch-benighteds-kevin-paradis-perform-drums-for-new-formicarius-song/
Any time I see this man play, I realize how much harder I need to work. There are many death metal drummers that settle around the 240bpm mark as a comfort zone (which is very impressive, don’t get me wrong), but Kevin decided to push as far as he could go and continues to do so. There is a very, very small handful of drummers that can play 280bpm double bass with single strokes like Kevin does, and he even does it without the use of swivel technique. To be able to achieve something like this is just a testament to how hard he has worked to get where he has gotten; if almost no one else is able to do it, he clearly cares about his craft and goals. In the video I am about to show, Kevin demonstrates himself playing 280bpm double bass using socks, crocs, Yoda slippers, heels pump, Dr Martens, and Santiags; all solely to show that the real driver for speed is technique and practice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52fOqX0QOOA
Foot technique aside, let’s talk about Kevin’s amazing hand technique. His right hand is mostly well-trained in your average techniques (German, French) and can execute over 300bpm with ease; a speed most people dream of playing. Not only can he play at this speed for a decent amount of time, but he can also do it with great power and accuracy behind his strokes and maintain effective mobility around the kit. The most interesting part of his technique is the push-pull (or more accurately open-close) technique that he uses in his left hand. This calls back to last week’s blog post on Jojo Mayer, one of the pioneers of this technique, but Kevin took the most advanced version of this technique and began to actually apply it in his songs. Kevin developed this technique to allow his left hand to continuously play 16th notes on the snare during 300+bpm blasts for extended periods of time and conserve as much energy as possible. Getting this technique down at such a high speed is one thing, but playing it on the 16th off-beat (to create 32nd notes for traditional blasts) takes far more practice. To demonstrate, here is a video of Kevin taking an already 280bpm Benighted song and speeding it up to 310bpm whilst also adding traditional blasts throughout the whole song just to make it harder. This is “Necrobreed” by Benighted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8o9kNDoiBc
One very interesting aspect of Kevin’s drumming is that his roots fall into fusion, jazz, rock, and heavy metal. A lot of metal drummers start off as metal drummers, but Kevin did not; this provides for some very unique ideas that you do not often see. His influence from fusion and jazz show in his playing as he incorporates ideas from those genres into his fast metal tracks that he has been a part of. This has made him an extremely effective technical death metal drummer (along with someone like Sebastian Lanser who I covered in an earlier blog post). I am always a big fan of drummers who take things to the next level and include different elements of their repertoire into everything they do. It creates a unique and signature sound that shows what the drummer has to offer that other people cannot, and also innovates new music that will not sound like everything else that already exists. For example, let’s take a look a song he was hired to record for a band called Irkalla. This song features a lot of very unorthodox and quick fills smashed in between some 300bpm hand and foot work. I would argue that his past influences are mostly evident in the fills; many ghost notes with great use of syncopation. Here is the video of him tracking it with drums only:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAKqd4Y5vCM
In summation, Kevin is the pinnacle of where hours of practice and hard work and get you. As someone who has been working on their speed and endurance over the past year, I have been very intrigued and inspired by drummers like Kevin to work even harder to achieve my goals without causing damage to my body in the process (a path that I was originally on track to do). This being said, we are at the end of my Drummers I Love blog series! I hope you all enjoyed getting some insight on my influences and the path I am aiming to take as I train to bring my own style to the table alongside these amazing drummers. I would like to remind you all that if you have any questions for me, you can reach me on my socials or my e-mail. To conclude, here is a rather crazy solo by Kevin called “Soothed”. Thank you all for reading, stay safe, and have a wonderful day!
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